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Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Sterling Murdock – Life during WWII
By Sterling Murdock
October 14, 2003
Box 3 Folder 14
Oral Interview conducted by Troy Miskin
Transcript copied by Carol May September 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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TM: Ok, can I get your name?
SM: Sterling Murdock.
TM: Ok, and where were you born?
SM: Rexburg, Idaho.
TM: And how old were you when the war began? World War II.
SM: Ah, let’s see, ’ 41, ’ 47 on the calendar I would have been… Shoot, probably about a
sophomore in high school, a freshman or sophomore.
TM: And what do you remember anything about that day when the war began?
SM: We didn’t have television then so you don’t have everything play by play like they
do now. We had an old dome type radio that was run by a battery and when you’d turn it
on it would squeal and holler at you for awhile until things got warmed up, and where
you got your information at how everything was going was go to the picture show and
they’d have a newsreel going before the picture show so as it got into closer to my turn
the fellows that we had working for us they left when it first started in ’ 48 and ’ 40, ’ 40,
’ 41, and ’ 42. Russell Nash and Al Knutson, they went at about that time and when I got
old enough to go to college I was on the draft board up there in Teton County and I
wanted to come down and start college and they had a draft board says no don’t do that
cause your next up in the draft. So that I was a graduate out of high school in ’ 48 and ’ 44
spring of ’ 44 and the fall of ’ 43. Let’s see that’s not right, correct me boy.
TM: Ok, so what did you think about it, like when you were drafting, when you were
drafted?
SM: I thought we’d go and shoot the butt end off all of the Japs in the country. What
else is there to think about?
TM: Ok, and where did you serve?
SM: I, ( cleared throat) excuse me, I took my basic training in Camp Roberts, California,
and I was there until spring so what’s that four or five months, and then we got out in, I
come home on furlough anyway, first of, first part of May, last part of April, first part of
May, had eight days furlough, and so we come home. I had a sweetie here at home that
I’d been writing to all the time and, so rather than having all those letters go to waste and
her kids around to read them I thought I’d see if she would marry me. So we left for
Camp Roberts, we went to Paso Robles, that’s a little town that the soldiers would go to
overnight.
TM: Ok, and what was you rank?
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SM: Pretty stiff if I wasn’t passed up every night. I was Private First Class when I was, I
was telling you about my sweetie so I’ll go back to that. So we went up there and at the
jewelry store there and there was a big, big diamond ring and we bought it for sixty
dollars and I had twenty dollars and each of them buddies each had twenty dollars that
they lent me to buy this ring to send home so I got it and wrapped it up and they mailed it
there and I didn’t put any note inside or explanation or who it was from so I got back to
camp I wrote a letter and put it in the mail that same day, and I was sure that the letter
would beat the package, ya know, and found out later that she said that she didn’t know
who she was engaged to. She got the ring and decided that she’d keep it, first guy that
came along and claimed it then that’s who she’d be engaged to. So, that’s the way that I
got engaged to my wife and when I was still on furlough we took four days out of the
eight days ta buy the time we got our recommends and blood tests and everything and
they didn’t just walk up and say I want to be married in them days they put ya through
the grind, and if they weren’t quite old enough, the parents had to sign or ya didn’t get
married. My wife she was old enough nobody signed for her, cause girls at eighteen you
don’t have to, but I was only twenty so I had to be signed for. So, daddy signed my
marriage certificate and so we’s home just long enough to have a… we stayed in Malad,
first night out of Salt Lake, and then we came over here to Milo. They had a reception
for us there and that was the second night and the third night we went up to Driggs,
Bates, out west of Driggs was where we lived. We had another, oh, what do they call
‘ em? We used to have, we called them a lot of different, anyway, we had another party
for us there, then the next night I was in Idaho Falls at midnight to go back to the Army.
So I was; I was as long as my furlough lasted. So, anyway to make a long story short,
when I got home out of the Army then I wasn’t dead and my wife she was still my wife
and so we went to live together. So, ok, now let’s go back to what? What’s my rank?
TM: Yeah.
SM: You know you don’t get any rank, you get it when you first get out of Basic, you’re
all Private First Class. That isn’t even a mark on your shoulder, it’s just a… what’s on
paper and well maybe they did give little slashes for First Classes. But when we get out
of there then I wasn’t assigned any outfit when we left, went to Fort Ord, Camp Roberts,
no, no, no, Fort Orden in San Francisco. That was the replacement depot that they’d ship
you overseas or fly you to Germany or wherever they needed replacements. So, they
loaded us on a ship, and it was an old Merchant Marine vessel and they wouldn’t get out
and go like you see them do on television nowadays. It took us twenty- eight days to go
to the Philippines in Manila, and it was a long old trip we’d go in the daytime we’d
zigzag, at night boy they’d open that old girl up and every joint in her would be a
popping and a snapping and go as fast as they could during the night then they slow down
during the daylight, that was so submarines couldn’t get a direct hit on ya, made it harder
anyway, so we got over in the Philippines. First part of June and we landed at their naval
not for their dock in Manila there. But the harbor was so full with boats and ships, that
sank in there that it just see smokestacks a sticking up out of water, probably a little more
the top and then so. We had to stop out quite a little ways and get in the little trolley
boats and go in through the smokestacks and sunken ships to get over to where they could
land ya at and so we go there and we went on to the railroad station and they loaded us on
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little troop cars, box cars they was about the size of a shoe box that got twenty guys in it.
Yet they had a let’s see there was about a hundred, oh, two- hundred and something like
that of us and so we went down to this little replacement depot down at Halabang, and
we, they give us a bed and they put us on guard duty right quick. That first night that I got
there I was on guard duty and boy in the jungles, ever see a plow boy in the jungles and
get used to them birds and crickets a yelling and a snapping. It was pretty creepy. And
then we had a post we would go down one side, across another side, then across the end
so you were going in a V all night on this one corner. One of the other guys we joined
them for a few minutes and so towards morning a flashlight would shine out but it would
hit the ground right down in front of you. Then so you’s walking in the dark. This one
time we met up with a guy up on the corner and we talked said he hadn’t seen anything or
hadn’t heard of anything so we just left and gosh I hadn’t of been probably a hundred feet
from him when boy he opened up fire and yelled Corporal of the Guard here come the
guard out of the camp post where we was at officer and all of the boys that was on guard
that night that was sleeping they come so I just kind of waited around there I didn’t go
fast as I well I would just wait and see what was happen. If the jungle was full of Japs I
didn’t want to be walking down into it. But I don’t mean Japs the way they would think
of them nowadays, they’re Japanese. In that time all Japs looked alike we couldn’t tell
one from the other they’s all so they, they was messing around there it kind of got
daylight I went back up there to the guys that was messing around and asked what
happened. They laughed and they said that there was a crashing in the jungle and the guy
he owned up fire and he says that Uncle Sam just bought their selves a nice water buffalo.
That’s what he got from the noise in the swamps, so anyways we were there for close to a
week but you could hear the shooting going on up in the mountains just back aways it
was close enough the replacement depots was close enough you could hear the fire going
on and they call us out each morning it was the only time in my life I was glad that my
name was lower down on the alphabet, cause it took them quite a while to get down to
“ M”. And they called so many guys what they needed for replacements for what they
lost from the night before so each morning when you fell out you didn’t know if it was
your turn or just what. And it happened to be that after we’s there for three or four days
this one morning they called us out we and the whole works lined up out there for all that
was left and we left the United States we had sixty head of prisoners with us that had
been in the stockade area in the United States and they, their sentence was to go over
there and they’d sent them to the shop troops down in Mindanao below the Philippines,
and then they’d if they’d lived through that well then they’s released from their deal up
here in the States so when they called us all out there them boys was taken too. So I
know we was heading for Mindanao, that’s what I felt like and it’s on down below the
equator and there’s an island there I guess I think that they’re still fighting there I don’t
know. But we got down just, oh, we’s just about half a day from the equator and our ship
turned around just like we’d forgot the Columbia Coffee, you could tell that it was
turning sharp enough around nobody never knew anything they never told ya anything.
You just went for the ride and finally the sailor boys got talking with one of them and he
said well they had a need for replacements at island of Saboo. We’d gone through it
about a half day before we, we turned around and come back pulled in and harbored there
and so they we all unloaded and got into trucks different so many guys to a truck. And
they had benches, out from the bed, Army trucks aren’t very wide and they had them
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sittin’ and they had a cover up over ‘ em and so we went up the hills towards the fighting
was going and we got just about there and officer pulled out in front of us and the whole
deal stopped next thing we knew we’s backin’ around and turning the trucks around so
didn’t know where we’s going then and so they said we were going they were taking us
back down to the ocean to set up camp for the – our call division was up in there fighting
so that’s what happened so us we went to, down in there and spent our time there and
when the soldiers came down out of the hills they had they’d finished the fighting there
so they come back there and was we got the guys that was there got assigned to different
companies where they’d lost fellows. I got to go with “ H company”. And we had the
tents set up and there was twenty- four men to a tent, big long tents, twelve bunks on each
side and so we had, we didn’t do any exercise and training like they was here in the
States because over there they got a chance to rest they rested they didn’t get out and see
how fit they could make you so we spent our time making beach heads what we call a
beach head over in Formosa and we earned how to cook snakes and all those little things
and eat them cause in Formosa there’s a lot of that kind of reptiles in their jungle. Well
now before we left for Formosa we got a different plan we was going to go to Japan so
we was assigned to make a beach head right in Ukom harbor. And so we spent our time,
watch a show in the evening we had a big kind of a pit and fold seats around it and sit in
there and look across at the film we was there one night and we’d loaded everything on
the ship to go to Japan and we’d sent our food and everything there except just enough
for your personal belongings and so we was gonna eat sea rations for a day and then we
was gonna load on go while during the this, during the time there that typhoon come up.
It come up across Okinawa and, oh, let’s see, on Okinawa it cut across the South Pacific
and it caught us we were south of where the tarphoon, typhoon was so we didn’t ship out
for three or four days and so one night at the picture show, the Return of Jessie and Frank
James, so we’d show and we’d seen it so many times that even you yelled and hoped for
him even before he came into sight but they, come on the show on the screen the war is
over Japanese have surrendered boy everybody jumped up and yelled and happy as if
they’d had good sense and so then they drank everything they could find to drink they
went into the infirmary and took their white alcohol mixed it with grape juice or juice boy
it was and I went in and I went to bed, one boy he come in there and he had little juice in
a glass and got opened up the little door there to put some more coal in or wood in and he
said I wonder what this will do and he throwed it in that fire and it went SSSSPPPHHHH.
AHHHH I wonder what that was doing to my guts. It was sure full of power. But we
landed there left there and headed for Japan and we was two or three days before we got
to Japan and we pulled up I don’t even remember the day not when we got to Japan it had
to be the later part of let’s see the first part of September and so we got over to the harbor
and we pulled into it, shipped it and going up in there you could hear a pin drop it was so
quiet everybody thought that they’d try to blast us out of the water because of all the dirty
tricks they’d played and everything they had no just, just sacrifice their own selves or
anything you know and it was so eerie and quiet that along the big harbor where you
went in they had great big cannons up on the side and their barrels was up in the air but
you could of drove a jeep down each one of those barrels we thought sure watching
thought sure that one of them would drop down and karroon me but it didn’t happen. We
floated right up into the, to the dock, walked down the gang plank thought we was white
people again. And they – I was with the third outfit to land in Japan and they took my
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outfit when we first got there sent us out to the airport to stand guard over the airport so
they couldn’t be taking things out of the country or going in or so we stayed there for
about two weeks until the fly boys got there and then they took over on their job of
watching the airport. And we had just a matter of survival from there on till we had to
after the Air Force come and took over our guard duty there then we went and was broke
up into companies after you’ve been there two years well then your time was allotted
time was up and they dismiss them to come home after the war was over so there’s lots of
them outfits was had the old boys in there quite a long while and they was ready to come
home so us new guys we got assigned wherever they needed somebody and I was
assigned to the 123rd Black Cat Division and we went to Omenada that’s at the northern
part of the island and they – that’s where the Jap’s was going to make their last
stronghold. The Japanese is what they say now and so all of the honeybomb big lid
airplane factories and one ton ammunition and another just everything like that just clear
around that old hill and so we started in of cleaning these out. They’d haul them out,
dump it in the ocean and guns whatever they you know whatever they had made after
we’d dumped them in the water well they’d assigned me to – with the detail that goes out
to furnace room, keep the furnace stoked up so I didn’t get to help them clean out the, the
all whatever but we sure now the snow there you usually get about twenty- six feet deep
they said and we stayed to right after or right about Christmas time or maybe after. So
then we got, they got their hill cleaned out and so they decided to get us out of there well
they could get out so we went back down to Tokyo, and we went to a replacement depot
there and then they broke up our company and we joined some down there and there’s
quite a lot of us went to a Quarter Master 363rd Quarter Master Division. And our part of
the Quarter Master was we had four big semi’s with dryers and washers for our clothes,
laundry clothes, and they’d bring them in with semi’s loads kick them off wherever they
could. We’d wash clothes everyday and put them back in bags and send them back to
wherever they come from so that’s what I got to do with my time till my time finally
wore out. But I went overseas as a Private and over there then they made me a Private
First Class, and then when we went see we went to H Company, no, no wrong, went over
into Japan and that’s where we went to this company and they was sending all these guys
home and so when we come back from winter time and so they got us assigned, I met this
Italian fellow on the train coming back from up there and his, his, was fine fellow and
we got kind of chummy and so the Sergeant, Platoon Sergeant told him he says you
wanna good job. He says well I, I believe I know, he says what is it? He says well I need
someone to replace me as Platoon Sergeant. And he says well I’m going home with you
guys but if you know anybody else that make a Platoon Sergeant, and I told him yeah I
would so Sergeant he come found me and he’s in the morning you come and stand up
there with me to have you report, you’re gonna have my job. So I washed, I got a
mirrors, I got up there the next morning and, I, my rank changed from First Class, Private
First Class and when I come home out of the, when I graduated from, when I got my men
left I was First Sergeant, about five months before I come home, but I couldn’t get my
stripes because when the war broke they a lot of these officers was these just First class
or Private you know they didn’t call them First Class they called them lieutenants and the
Sergeant First Class they made more money than the lieutenants would and the non-commissioned
officer they furnished all your clothes well the lieutenants they had to buy
all their own clothes, so it was costing them quite a bit, so when they said that they done
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that so they took our war from there and went to Korea and said if I’d sign up for a year
in Korea, they’d give me my First Sergeant stripes and I told them I’d had to experience
and them stripes didn’t mean that much to me cause I thought that it was my turn to go
home and I’d better take it and they offered to bring my wife over and that’s no place to
take your wife to you know. So, I come home and she so glad to see me when I got here.
TM: So, was it like after the war was over what was it, was like the United States any
different?
SM: Oh, I don’t know what the feeling was. They, it was relief. Being the first or not
the first but like if you needed a tractor or a car, see all of that was rationed you couldn’t
just go into a dealer and buy them you had to get on the list and I’d signed up for tractor
with all those outfits you know so far, ( talking to someone else) there was relief because
they was all signed up they couldn’t even buy sugar without rations. And it took the
curse off the country.

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Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Sterling Murdock – Life during WWII
By Sterling Murdock
October 14, 2003
Box 3 Folder 14
Oral Interview conducted by Troy Miskin
Transcript copied by Carol May September 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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TM: Ok, can I get your name?
SM: Sterling Murdock.
TM: Ok, and where were you born?
SM: Rexburg, Idaho.
TM: And how old were you when the war began? World War II.
SM: Ah, let’s see, ’ 41, ’ 47 on the calendar I would have been… Shoot, probably about a
sophomore in high school, a freshman or sophomore.
TM: And what do you remember anything about that day when the war began?
SM: We didn’t have television then so you don’t have everything play by play like they
do now. We had an old dome type radio that was run by a battery and when you’d turn it
on it would squeal and holler at you for awhile until things got warmed up, and where
you got your information at how everything was going was go to the picture show and
they’d have a newsreel going before the picture show so as it got into closer to my turn
the fellows that we had working for us they left when it first started in ’ 48 and ’ 40, ’ 40,
’ 41, and ’ 42. Russell Nash and Al Knutson, they went at about that time and when I got
old enough to go to college I was on the draft board up there in Teton County and I
wanted to come down and start college and they had a draft board says no don’t do that
cause your next up in the draft. So that I was a graduate out of high school in ’ 48 and ’ 44
spring of ’ 44 and the fall of ’ 43. Let’s see that’s not right, correct me boy.
TM: Ok, so what did you think about it, like when you were drafting, when you were
drafted?
SM: I thought we’d go and shoot the butt end off all of the Japs in the country. What
else is there to think about?
TM: Ok, and where did you serve?
SM: I, ( cleared throat) excuse me, I took my basic training in Camp Roberts, California,
and I was there until spring so what’s that four or five months, and then we got out in, I
come home on furlough anyway, first of, first part of May, last part of April, first part of
May, had eight days furlough, and so we come home. I had a sweetie here at home that
I’d been writing to all the time and, so rather than having all those letters go to waste and
her kids around to read them I thought I’d see if she would marry me. So we left for
Camp Roberts, we went to Paso Robles, that’s a little town that the soldiers would go to
overnight.
TM: Ok, and what was you rank?
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SM: Pretty stiff if I wasn’t passed up every night. I was Private First Class when I was, I
was telling you about my sweetie so I’ll go back to that. So we went up there and at the
jewelry store there and there was a big, big diamond ring and we bought it for sixty
dollars and I had twenty dollars and each of them buddies each had twenty dollars that
they lent me to buy this ring to send home so I got it and wrapped it up and they mailed it
there and I didn’t put any note inside or explanation or who it was from so I got back to
camp I wrote a letter and put it in the mail that same day, and I was sure that the letter
would beat the package, ya know, and found out later that she said that she didn’t know
who she was engaged to. She got the ring and decided that she’d keep it, first guy that
came along and claimed it then that’s who she’d be engaged to. So, that’s the way that I
got engaged to my wife and when I was still on furlough we took four days out of the
eight days ta buy the time we got our recommends and blood tests and everything and
they didn’t just walk up and say I want to be married in them days they put ya through
the grind, and if they weren’t quite old enough, the parents had to sign or ya didn’t get
married. My wife she was old enough nobody signed for her, cause girls at eighteen you
don’t have to, but I was only twenty so I had to be signed for. So, daddy signed my
marriage certificate and so we’s home just long enough to have a… we stayed in Malad,
first night out of Salt Lake, and then we came over here to Milo. They had a reception
for us there and that was the second night and the third night we went up to Driggs,
Bates, out west of Driggs was where we lived. We had another, oh, what do they call
‘ em? We used to have, we called them a lot of different, anyway, we had another party
for us there, then the next night I was in Idaho Falls at midnight to go back to the Army.
So I was; I was as long as my furlough lasted. So, anyway to make a long story short,
when I got home out of the Army then I wasn’t dead and my wife she was still my wife
and so we went to live together. So, ok, now let’s go back to what? What’s my rank?
TM: Yeah.
SM: You know you don’t get any rank, you get it when you first get out of Basic, you’re
all Private First Class. That isn’t even a mark on your shoulder, it’s just a… what’s on
paper and well maybe they did give little slashes for First Classes. But when we get out
of there then I wasn’t assigned any outfit when we left, went to Fort Ord, Camp Roberts,
no, no, no, Fort Orden in San Francisco. That was the replacement depot that they’d ship
you overseas or fly you to Germany or wherever they needed replacements. So, they
loaded us on a ship, and it was an old Merchant Marine vessel and they wouldn’t get out
and go like you see them do on television nowadays. It took us twenty- eight days to go
to the Philippines in Manila, and it was a long old trip we’d go in the daytime we’d
zigzag, at night boy they’d open that old girl up and every joint in her would be a
popping and a snapping and go as fast as they could during the night then they slow down
during the daylight, that was so submarines couldn’t get a direct hit on ya, made it harder
anyway, so we got over in the Philippines. First part of June and we landed at their naval
not for their dock in Manila there. But the harbor was so full with boats and ships, that
sank in there that it just see smokestacks a sticking up out of water, probably a little more
the top and then so. We had to stop out quite a little ways and get in the little trolley
boats and go in through the smokestacks and sunken ships to get over to where they could
land ya at and so we go there and we went on to the railroad station and they loaded us on
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little troop cars, box cars they was about the size of a shoe box that got twenty guys in it.
Yet they had a let’s see there was about a hundred, oh, two- hundred and something like
that of us and so we went down to this little replacement depot down at Halabang, and
we, they give us a bed and they put us on guard duty right quick. That first night that I got
there I was on guard duty and boy in the jungles, ever see a plow boy in the jungles and
get used to them birds and crickets a yelling and a snapping. It was pretty creepy. And
then we had a post we would go down one side, across another side, then across the end
so you were going in a V all night on this one corner. One of the other guys we joined
them for a few minutes and so towards morning a flashlight would shine out but it would
hit the ground right down in front of you. Then so you’s walking in the dark. This one
time we met up with a guy up on the corner and we talked said he hadn’t seen anything or
hadn’t heard of anything so we just left and gosh I hadn’t of been probably a hundred feet
from him when boy he opened up fire and yelled Corporal of the Guard here come the
guard out of the camp post where we was at officer and all of the boys that was on guard
that night that was sleeping they come so I just kind of waited around there I didn’t go
fast as I well I would just wait and see what was happen. If the jungle was full of Japs I
didn’t want to be walking down into it. But I don’t mean Japs the way they would think
of them nowadays, they’re Japanese. In that time all Japs looked alike we couldn’t tell
one from the other they’s all so they, they was messing around there it kind of got
daylight I went back up there to the guys that was messing around and asked what
happened. They laughed and they said that there was a crashing in the jungle and the guy
he owned up fire and he says that Uncle Sam just bought their selves a nice water buffalo.
That’s what he got from the noise in the swamps, so anyways we were there for close to a
week but you could hear the shooting going on up in the mountains just back aways it
was close enough the replacement depots was close enough you could hear the fire going
on and they call us out each morning it was the only time in my life I was glad that my
name was lower down on the alphabet, cause it took them quite a while to get down to
“ M”. And they called so many guys what they needed for replacements for what they
lost from the night before so each morning when you fell out you didn’t know if it was
your turn or just what. And it happened to be that after we’s there for three or four days
this one morning they called us out we and the whole works lined up out there for all that
was left and we left the United States we had sixty head of prisoners with us that had
been in the stockade area in the United States and they, their sentence was to go over
there and they’d sent them to the shop troops down in Mindanao below the Philippines,
and then they’d if they’d lived through that well then they’s released from their deal up
here in the States so when they called us all out there them boys was taken too. So I
know we was heading for Mindanao, that’s what I felt like and it’s on down below the
equator and there’s an island there I guess I think that they’re still fighting there I don’t
know. But we got down just, oh, we’s just about half a day from the equator and our ship
turned around just like we’d forgot the Columbia Coffee, you could tell that it was
turning sharp enough around nobody never knew anything they never told ya anything.
You just went for the ride and finally the sailor boys got talking with one of them and he
said well they had a need for replacements at island of Saboo. We’d gone through it
about a half day before we, we turned around and come back pulled in and harbored there
and so they we all unloaded and got into trucks different so many guys to a truck. And
they had benches, out from the bed, Army trucks aren’t very wide and they had them
5
sittin’ and they had a cover up over ‘ em and so we went up the hills towards the fighting
was going and we got just about there and officer pulled out in front of us and the whole
deal stopped next thing we knew we’s backin’ around and turning the trucks around so
didn’t know where we’s going then and so they said we were going they were taking us
back down to the ocean to set up camp for the – our call division was up in there fighting
so that’s what happened so us we went to, down in there and spent our time there and
when the soldiers came down out of the hills they had they’d finished the fighting there
so they come back there and was we got the guys that was there got assigned to different
companies where they’d lost fellows. I got to go with “ H company”. And we had the
tents set up and there was twenty- four men to a tent, big long tents, twelve bunks on each
side and so we had, we didn’t do any exercise and training like they was here in the
States because over there they got a chance to rest they rested they didn’t get out and see
how fit they could make you so we spent our time making beach heads what we call a
beach head over in Formosa and we earned how to cook snakes and all those little things
and eat them cause in Formosa there’s a lot of that kind of reptiles in their jungle. Well
now before we left for Formosa we got a different plan we was going to go to Japan so
we was assigned to make a beach head right in Ukom harbor. And so we spent our time,
watch a show in the evening we had a big kind of a pit and fold seats around it and sit in
there and look across at the film we was there one night and we’d loaded everything on
the ship to go to Japan and we’d sent our food and everything there except just enough
for your personal belongings and so we was gonna eat sea rations for a day and then we
was gonna load on go while during the this, during the time there that typhoon come up.
It come up across Okinawa and, oh, let’s see, on Okinawa it cut across the South Pacific
and it caught us we were south of where the tarphoon, typhoon was so we didn’t ship out
for three or four days and so one night at the picture show, the Return of Jessie and Frank
James, so we’d show and we’d seen it so many times that even you yelled and hoped for
him even before he came into sight but they, come on the show on the screen the war is
over Japanese have surrendered boy everybody jumped up and yelled and happy as if
they’d had good sense and so then they drank everything they could find to drink they
went into the infirmary and took their white alcohol mixed it with grape juice or juice boy
it was and I went in and I went to bed, one boy he come in there and he had little juice in
a glass and got opened up the little door there to put some more coal in or wood in and he
said I wonder what this will do and he throwed it in that fire and it went SSSSPPPHHHH.
AHHHH I wonder what that was doing to my guts. It was sure full of power. But we
landed there left there and headed for Japan and we was two or three days before we got
to Japan and we pulled up I don’t even remember the day not when we got to Japan it had
to be the later part of let’s see the first part of September and so we got over to the harbor
and we pulled into it, shipped it and going up in there you could hear a pin drop it was so
quiet everybody thought that they’d try to blast us out of the water because of all the dirty
tricks they’d played and everything they had no just, just sacrifice their own selves or
anything you know and it was so eerie and quiet that along the big harbor where you
went in they had great big cannons up on the side and their barrels was up in the air but
you could of drove a jeep down each one of those barrels we thought sure watching
thought sure that one of them would drop down and karroon me but it didn’t happen. We
floated right up into the, to the dock, walked down the gang plank thought we was white
people again. And they – I was with the third outfit to land in Japan and they took my
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outfit when we first got there sent us out to the airport to stand guard over the airport so
they couldn’t be taking things out of the country or going in or so we stayed there for
about two weeks until the fly boys got there and then they took over on their job of
watching the airport. And we had just a matter of survival from there on till we had to
after the Air Force come and took over our guard duty there then we went and was broke
up into companies after you’ve been there two years well then your time was allotted
time was up and they dismiss them to come home after the war was over so there’s lots of
them outfits was had the old boys in there quite a long while and they was ready to come
home so us new guys we got assigned wherever they needed somebody and I was
assigned to the 123rd Black Cat Division and we went to Omenada that’s at the northern
part of the island and they – that’s where the Jap’s was going to make their last
stronghold. The Japanese is what they say now and so all of the honeybomb big lid
airplane factories and one ton ammunition and another just everything like that just clear
around that old hill and so we started in of cleaning these out. They’d haul them out,
dump it in the ocean and guns whatever they you know whatever they had made after
we’d dumped them in the water well they’d assigned me to – with the detail that goes out
to furnace room, keep the furnace stoked up so I didn’t get to help them clean out the, the
all whatever but we sure now the snow there you usually get about twenty- six feet deep
they said and we stayed to right after or right about Christmas time or maybe after. So
then we got, they got their hill cleaned out and so they decided to get us out of there well
they could get out so we went back down to Tokyo, and we went to a replacement depot
there and then they broke up our company and we joined some down there and there’s
quite a lot of us went to a Quarter Master 363rd Quarter Master Division. And our part of
the Quarter Master was we had four big semi’s with dryers and washers for our clothes,
laundry clothes, and they’d bring them in with semi’s loads kick them off wherever they
could. We’d wash clothes everyday and put them back in bags and send them back to
wherever they come from so that’s what I got to do with my time till my time finally
wore out. But I went overseas as a Private and over there then they made me a Private
First Class, and then when we went see we went to H Company, no, no wrong, went over
into Japan and that’s where we went to this company and they was sending all these guys
home and so when we come back from winter time and so they got us assigned, I met this
Italian fellow on the train coming back from up there and his, his, was fine fellow and
we got kind of chummy and so the Sergeant, Platoon Sergeant told him he says you
wanna good job. He says well I, I believe I know, he says what is it? He says well I need
someone to replace me as Platoon Sergeant. And he says well I’m going home with you
guys but if you know anybody else that make a Platoon Sergeant, and I told him yeah I
would so Sergeant he come found me and he’s in the morning you come and stand up
there with me to have you report, you’re gonna have my job. So I washed, I got a
mirrors, I got up there the next morning and, I, my rank changed from First Class, Private
First Class and when I come home out of the, when I graduated from, when I got my men
left I was First Sergeant, about five months before I come home, but I couldn’t get my
stripes because when the war broke they a lot of these officers was these just First class
or Private you know they didn’t call them First Class they called them lieutenants and the
Sergeant First Class they made more money than the lieutenants would and the non-commissioned
officer they furnished all your clothes well the lieutenants they had to buy
all their own clothes, so it was costing them quite a bit, so when they said that they done
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that so they took our war from there and went to Korea and said if I’d sign up for a year
in Korea, they’d give me my First Sergeant stripes and I told them I’d had to experience
and them stripes didn’t mean that much to me cause I thought that it was my turn to go
home and I’d better take it and they offered to bring my wife over and that’s no place to
take your wife to you know. So, I come home and she so glad to see me when I got here.
TM: So, was it like after the war was over what was it, was like the United States any
different?
SM: Oh, I don’t know what the feeling was. They, it was relief. Being the first or not
the first but like if you needed a tractor or a car, see all of that was rationed you couldn’t
just go into a dealer and buy them you had to get on the list and I’d signed up for tractor
with all those outfits you know so far, ( talking to someone else) there was relief because
they was all signed up they couldn’t even buy sugar without rations. And it took the
curse off the country.